Franklin's Gull
Wheeling gracefully through the skies, seemingly lighter than air, Franklin's Gulls are a hallmark species of the windswept prairie provinces and states. They are birds of great beauty, particularly in the breeding season, when they sport sharp black hoods, white eye-arcs, bright red bills, and immaculate underparts, which show a subtle rose-pink tint in the early weeks of spring.

Most Franklin's Gulls breed in noisy colonies in marshes in the Canadian prairie provinces and the north-central United States, including Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho, southeastern Oregon, and Nevada. Habitat may include various types of emergent vegetation, including cattails and bulrushes. Colonies vary widely in size, from 25 to more than 100,000 breeding pairs. Colonies shift locations from year to year in response to shifting water levels.
Franklin's Gull Range Map

The population status of Franklin's Gull is uncertain, because the remoteness of breeding locations and the transience of colonies from year to year make precise, comprehensive counts difficult. In the past, drainage of habitat and drought have posed threats to breeding populations; the creation and maintenance of wetlands, particularly in national wildlife refuges and wildlife management areas, have been an important factor in sustaining Franklin's Gull population numbers.

After young Franklin's Gulls fledge, generally by mid-July, Franklin's Gull colonies begin to break up, with individual birds wandering widely across the prairie. In early fall, Franklin's Gulls form flocks, which may comprise hundreds of thousands of birds, and migrate south through Texas and Mexico to their wintering grounds on the Pacific coast of South America, from Peru to Chile, and on inland lakes in Argentina.

Franklin's Gulls have a highly varied diet. On their breeding grounds, they eat worms, grubs, insects, grain and seeds, mice, fish, and various aquatic invertebrates. Their consumption of agricultural pests is beneficial to farming. Franklin's Gulls also feed at landfills.

Nests are constructed at the water's surface, on floating mats of vegetation or on muskrat houses. Males and females work together to build the nest, pulling or cutting marsh vegetation, and very often stealing material from the nests of other Franklin's Gulls. As their nests gradually sink through gravity and decay, Franklin's Gulls continue to add material. Even three-week-old chicks add material to their families' nests.

Franklin's Gull is a small, graceful, hooded gull. Length is about 13 to 14.5 inches. Breeding adults have striking black hoods, with broad, conspicuous white arcs on the top and bottom of each eye. Bill is bright red with a black ring near the tip. Mantle is dark gray. Underparts are white, with a tinge of rosy pink from winter into the first few weeks of the breeding season. When Franklin's Gulls are at rest with wings folded, they show large white spots set against black on the tips of their primaries (the outermost long wing feathers). Legs are black. Nonbreeding adults and subadults past their first winter show partial hoods covering their crowns and ears, with black bills. Juveniles have brown mantles; first-winter plumage is intermediate between juvenal and first-summer plumage.

Franklin's Gulls closely resemble Laughing Gulls, which are larger with very little white on the wingtips. Laughing Gulls breed on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

Franklin's Gulls utter various calls. One call pattern begins with a short “kah” followed by a series of long syllables, then a series of short syllables. Alarm call is a loud, repetitious, staccato “kuk-kuk-kuk-kuk.”


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